Murray third in BBC Sports Personality award

I understand that both Bradley Wiggins and Ben Ainslie are in line to be awarded knighthoods together with other damehoods etc .

To me this makes a mockery of the Honours system. After all they are sportsmen just doing what they are trained to do. The affect on the British population will never have a long-lasting effect and after a few years they will be forgotten.

It's no more illogical than actors/musicians/politicians being honoured for doing their job and getting paid very well for it or Joe Bloggs being honoured for running a fish and chip shop for 25 years! IMO the whole honours system needs to be reviewed - from the nomenclature (we no longer have a British Empire for goodness sake) down to who is a worthy recipient. Surely honours should be reserved for those unsung heroes who do amazing things for other people for no personal gain - thankfully there are plenty of them around.

I 100.00% agree! And those were the points I was addressing without being specific. In particular your last sentence.

To many people out there 3rd may look like a bad thing, but the year Britain has had in the sporting world with victories at the Olympics, Tour De France, US Open blah blah blah it is truly amazing that it is not just his fanbase noticing him for what he has done this year. I'm gutted Mo didn't get higher because I truly respect him but for Andy to come 3rd is a real treat.

Thank you all for voting!

But, nonetheless I still think Andy was right about what he said. One person's achievements should not be ranked any higher then anyone else's because they have done Britain just as proud whoever it was.

It says a fair bit about the standard or class of MW members that no one moans or even questions the fact that reaching a Wimbledon Final, opening up to the nation, winning an Olympic Silver in doubles, winning an Olympic GOLD beating the top two players in the world and the small job of winning a maiden slam at the US is worthy of third. You are all too nice!!! Personally i would be apoplectic if I hadn't seen the whole Wiggo shite brewing months ago. SP2012 "mY aRSE!

As said many more times before, it was very smart to invite the british journalists before this event, so everybody could have seen for what reason he was not be able to be at the Spoty. Very happy that Andy did not come to GB to recive this third price witch is only interesting for ...who? British people? (but I think he already knew before this outcome...)

I doubt that Andy would have interrupted his first big training block with Lendl even if he had been a dead cert to win SPOTY.

Yeah I think he'd have still stayed in Florida regardless. Winning SPOTY is nice but it's also something that's soon forgotten, whereas winning another slam will always be remembered. It's different for a lot of the other sportspeople at the awards - they have longer off-seasons so much more time to prepare. For tennis players, they have to cram in so much training into just a few weeks - not worth interrupting that to attend an awards ceremony.

It says a fair bit about the standard or class of MW members that no one moans or even questions the fact that reaching a Wimbledon Final, opening up to the nation, winning an Olympic Silver in doubles, winning an Olympic GOLD beating the top two players in the world and the small job of winning a maiden slam at the US is worthy of third. You are all too nice!!! Personally i would be apoplectic if I hadn't seen the whole Wiggo shite brewing months ago. SP2012 "mY aRSE!

No drchef it just shows we're realistic. As you say we've known for months that Wiggo would win it. Jess and Mo were also tipped as strong contenders. Tbh if I wasn't already an Andy fan I'd probably have voted for Mo or even Nicola Adams as they're unlikely to be in a position to win again whereas Andy is. So I thought given the context and given that we know not all British tennis fans are Andy fans, Andy did really well. And I think our comments reflect that rather than British 'niceness' [after all we're often not that 'nice' to each other! ]

To many people out there 3rd may look like a bad thing, but the year Britain has had in the sporting world with victories at the Olympics, Tour De France, US Open blah blah blah it is truly amazing that it is not just his fanbase noticing him for what he has done this year. I'm gutted Mo didn't get higher because I truly respect him but for Andy to come 3rd is a real treat.

Thank you all for voting!

But, nonetheless I still think Andy was right about what he said. One person's achievements should not be ranked any higher then anyone else's because they have done Britain just as proud whoever it was.

It should be renamed Cycling Personality of the year. I tried to phone from France but Andy's line was constantly engaged, many others have reported this too.I consoled myself by watching the US open final again, just the thing on a wet and windy day. I did love the Lennox Lewis presention....Off to the UK friday and not going to be online so Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year to all Andy fans and continued success to our boy.

Yeah I think he'd have still stayed in Florida regardless. Winning SPOTY is nice but it's also something that's soon forgotten, whereas winning another slam will always be remembered. It's different for a lot of the other sportspeople at the awards - they have longer off-seasons so much more time to prepare. For tennis players, they have to cram in so much training into just a few weeks - not worth interrupting that to attend an awards ceremony.

I think something like this is of secondary importance to Andy - nice to have but not essential for his career. Anyway I'm sure winning the BBC Scotland SPOTY will mean a lot to him.

Wiggins always was going to win this. I guess Tour de France sounds much more exotic than US Open. Just shows how little people know about what's involved here. But given the other contenders for this SPOTY I think that, by coming third, we can assume that Andy has now finally 'arrived' in the hearts and minds of the British public.

By the way - I've heard complaints from some who wanted to vote for other contenders that they couldn't get through either, so it wasn't just us.